Conceptions of genuine knowledge in Wang Yangming* Harvey Lederman August 6, 2021 Abstract This paper studies one aspect of the great Ming dynasty philosopher Wang Yang- ming’s (王陽明 1472-1529) celebrated doctrine of the unity of knowledge and ac- tion (zhi xing he yi 知行合一). Wang states that his doctrine does not apply to all knowledge, but only to an elevated form of knowledge, which he sometimes calls “genuine knowledge” (zhen zhi 真知). But what is “genuine knowledge”? I de- velop and compare four different interpretations of this notion: the perceptual, practical, normative and introspective models. The main aim of the paper is to de- velop these models in more detail than has been done before. But at the end of the paper I argue that the introspective model is to be preferred over the alternatives. Keywords: unity of knowledge and action, liangzhi, conscience, Wang Yangming, Neo- Confucianism, Chinese Philosophy 1 Introduction Wang Shouren (王守仁, Yangming 陽明 1472-1529) is widely recognized as the most influential philosopher of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and one of the most important philosophers in the whole tradition now called “Confucian”. Some of Wang’s most celebrated doctrines concern the relationship between knowledge and virtuous action. Wang claimed that his Song dynasty predecessors had held that a person can act vir- tuously only if they first determine that their action will be virtuous by applying their knowledge of general moral laws to their predicament. Since on this picture, knowl- edge of moral laws must precede virtuous action, the view was associated with the slogan that knowledge comes first, and action later. *Many thanks to Jennifer Eichman, P.J. Ivanhoe, Justin Tiwald and two anonymous referees for detailed and incisive comments on earlier versions of this paper. 1 Wang rejected this picture. According to him, virtuous action does require an im- portant cognitive achievement, but this cognitive achievement – which he sometimes called “genuine knowledge” (zhen zhi 真知) – does not precede action. Where his pre- decessors were associated with the slogan that knowledge comes first and action later, Wang described his own view as centered on “the unity of knowledge and action” (知 行合一). A key component of Wang’s radical reconceptualization of the relationship between knowledge and virtuous action was a distinctive understanding of the cognitive achieve- ment associated with virtuous action, that is, of “genuine knowledge”. The last five centuries of extensive scholarly discussion of Wang’s doctrine – first in China, Korea, and Japan, and now all over the world – has produced a vast array of different propos- als about how to understand this important notion. But we lack a systematic assess- ment of these different interpretations, and the absence of such an assessment makes it hard to distinguish what is well-understood from what is not, and thus to deter- mine what counts as progress in the interpretation of Wang Yangming. In this paper, I take some first steps toward providing such an assessment. I identify and develop four different interpretations of genuine knowledge: the perceptual model, the prac- tical model, the normative model, and the introspective model. The main aim of the paper is to present these four views in more detail than has been done before, and to clarify some costs and benefits of each of them. But at the end of the paper, I suggest that the balance of considerations favors my own introspective model. In slightly more detail, the plan of the paper is as follows. Section 2 presents some background which is key to the rest of the paper. Section 3 considers what is arguably the most prominent position in the Anglophone scholarship on Wang, the perceptual model, according to which genuine knowledge sometimes has perception of the envi- ronment as a part of it. On this view, the unity of knowledge and action is taken to concern in part how a virtuous person will perceive ethically significant facts in their environment, and seamlessly respond on the basis of this perception with appropri- ate demeanor and affect (Nivison (1973), Cua (1982) Angle (2005, 2009), Ivanhoe (2002, 2009, 2011)). I present some passages in support of this view and consider a simple, nat- ural way of developing it. But I argue that this simple development is incorrect. My argument against this particular development of the perceptual model is not a direct argument against that model itself – and I later consider a more sophisticated version of that model which escapes the argument – but it does tell against the overarching interpretation of the unity of knowledge and action which the perceptual model has been supposed to support. 2 Section 4 turns to two further interpretations of genuine knowledge, the practical model and the normative model. According to the practical model, genuine knowledge is a form of “knowledge how”, for instance, knowing how to be filially pious. On this view, the unity of knowledge and action concerns the claim that knowing how to be virtuous is acquired through, manifested in, and even constituted by virtuous action (Chen (1991, §5.3), Yu (2014),Yu (2016), Shi (2017)). According to the normative model, by contrast, genuine knowledge is understood as “knowledge-to” (as in, “a good child knows to care for their parents”). The unity of knowledge and action is taken to con- cern the claim that if a person knows to do something, then they will do it in the appro- priate circumstances (Huang (2016b), Huang (2017) cf. Huang (2013, 2016a)). I argue that the simplest view of the metaphysics of genuine knowledge which makes good on these two ideas does not sit well with the texts. Wang often emphasizes introspec- tive knowledge as a key aspect of the knowledge a fully virtuous person has, and the simplest versions of the practical and normative models cannot explain why he would emphasize introspection in this way.1 In response to this argument, I present a more sophisticated view of the metaphysics of genuine knowledge, which does accommo- date Wang’s remarks about introspection. But, I argue, even such a sophisticated view cannot escape a deeper problem for the practical and normative models. Since a per- son’s knowing how to do something or knowing to do it often precedes their doing it, both models struggle to make sense of Wang’s repeated, strenuous insistence that the form of knowledge which interests him does not precede action. In arguing against the practical and normative models I suggest that an adequate understanding of genuine knowledge should take account of Wang’s remarks about introspection. This suggestion raises the question: what if genuine knowledge just is a form of introspective knowledge? Section 5 develops this idea, and shows how it can accommodate some initially puzzling passages, including those which have been taken to motivate the perceptual, practical and normative models. At the end of the section, I argue that, on balance, the introspective model is to be preferred over these alternatives. A brief conclusion, section 6, takes stock, and discusses a methodological question: the extent to which we should think that Wang himself held systematic views about genuine knowledge. A companion paper, “The Introspective Model of Genuine Knowledge in Wang Yangming” (Lederman (forthcoming)), takes a different approach to the introspective 1Sometimes in ordinary English “introspection” describes an effortful process of directing one’s atten- tion at one’s own mind, and considering its contents. I am not using the word in this way. Rather, I am following a standard philosophical usage according to which any knowledge of one’s own mind counts as introspective knowledge. 3 model. There, I motivate the introspective model directly from the primary texts, fo- cusing on the sense in which genuine knowledge can be thought of as an elevated form of knowledge. I say little there about how the introspective model compares to others’ interpretations of genuine knowledge. In the present paper, by contrast, I focus to a great extent on the viability of alternative interpretations of genuine knowledge, and argue for the introspective model primarily by comparing it to those alternatives. I largely set aside the question of how genuine knowledge might be understood to be an elevated form of knowledge. The two papers are intended to be free-standing, but the considerations they adduce in favor of the introspective model are complementary. 2 Background In this section I introduce some key background for the remainder of the paper, starting from what are arguably Wang’s most famous remarks about the unity of knowledge and action. One of Wang’s students, Xu Ai (徐愛, Riren 曰仁 1487-1517), initiates a discussion of this doctrine by presenting a putative counterexample to it. Xu says: “Today everyone knows that they should be filial to their parents, and that they should be respectful to their older brothers, but they are unable to be filial, and unable to be respectful. So in this case knowledge and action are separated and are clearly two things”.2 Wang’s response to this comment is worth quoting at some length: [T1] 此已被私慾隔斷，不是知行的本體了。未有知而不行者。知而不行，只是未 知。聖賢教人知行，正是安復那本體，不是着你只恁的便罷。 故《大學》指個真知行與人看，說『如好好色，如惡惡臭』。見好色屬知， 好好色屬行。只見那好色時已自好了，不是見了後又立個心去好。聞惡臭屬 知，惡惡臭屬行。只聞那惡臭時已自惡了，不是聞了後別立個心去惡。如鼻 塞人雖見惡臭在前，鼻中不曾聞得，便亦不甚惡，亦只是不曾知臭。 就如稱某人知孝、某人知弟，必是其人已曾行孝行弟，方可稱他知孝知弟， 不成只是曉得說些孝弟的話，便可稱為知孝弟。又如知痛，必已自痛了方知 痛，知寒，必已自寒了︔知饑，必已自饑了︔知行如何分得開︖此便是知行 的本體，不曾有私意隔斷的。聖人教人，必要是如此，方可謂之知。不然， 只是不曾知。 2IPL 5, QJ 4, 如今人儘有知得父當孝、兄當弟者，却不能孝、不能弟，便是知與行分明是兩件。 Throughout the paper, I cite passages from the Instructions for Practical Living (hereafter, IPL, 傳習錄) by the section number of Chan’s editions (Chan (1963), Chan (1983)), followed by a page number in Wu et al.